Liam Miller: The Stupidest Transfer Move Of All Time
What to say about Liam Miller, now 35 and plying his trade in the Australian League having had a career in which he won only a small number of trophies and 21 caps, when for a while he seemed like a player with the whole world at his feet?
What to say? How about “How stupid were you?”
Liam Miller was on his way to becoming a huge part of Martin O’Neill’s Celtic team. He had played well for the club and looked on the cusp of something big. Martin to make him an integral part of the midfield engine room, but it was never to happen. Manchester United thought they saw something and Miller went down there in January 2004 to talk to them. He came back to Glasgow having signed a pre-contract agreement.
To say our fans were surprised is an understatement.
The general emotion was shock, and anger, that he had made that decision in spite of all the club had done for him. We rescued Liam Miller’s career; it’s no exaggeration to say that. He suffered terrible injury problems in the early part of his career and we showed tremendous faith and loyalty to him as he fought back from that. Having been so staunch for the player we expected some measure of that back, but we didn’t get it. He played a total of 26 games for us.
His time at United was, to put it bluntly, a disaster. At 22 he should have been playing first time football every week. It says a lot for his self-confidence, bordering on arrogance, that he thought he was too good to do that at Celtic, and that he could break into a Manchester United midfield that included Scholes, Beckham and Keane. To say it was unlikely is to be generous to him. He was light years from being able to play at that level.
In fact, it’s probably fair to say that Celtic and Manchester United both over-estimated his potential.
Reports suggest that he was offered a £1 million a year deal at Celtic Park; looking back at that now you wonder what the Hell Martin O’Neill and our board were thinking about in sanctioning that when he had played so few games and scored only 2 goals.
He made just 22 appearances in a Manchester United shirt, only 9 of them in the league.
He went on loan to Leeds, where he did get a lot of first team football but never scaled the heights. Manchester United released him on freedom of contract, and he went to Sunderland, to play under Keane, a move which held out promise but delivered little although he played 60 games in three seasons there. It was his attitude that did for him; Keane finally transfer listed him due to “poor discipline and bad time-keeping” amongst other things.
An unsuccessful spell at QPR followed, and finally he wound up back in Scottish football, which he’d left only six years before to “better his career.” He signed for Hibs, after spending nearly five months without a club. He’d clearly earned himself a reputation but not the one he’d hoped for.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, he found Scottish football more on his level. At Easter Road he became something of a cult figure; he stayed two years and played over 70 games and scored 7 goals, which was easily the best spell in his career. By the time it ended he was thirty, and on the downslope, and although Hibs offered him a new deal he knew the best was behind him. When an offer came to move to the softer environment of the Australian League he jumped at it.
He’s been there ever since. The part of his career which some people regard as their peak has been spent in a relative footballing backwater. To give him his due, the move was probably the best he’s ever made. The standard of living over there is excellent, and he probably has no regrets. He’s made a decent fist of it and done alright out of the sport.
But Liam Miller’s career is a cautionary tale for all that, one you can’t look back on without thinking of opportunities wasted, of what might have been.
